Islanders and Hurricanes are vivid parts of crazy playoff tapestry

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – You know how the TV cameras love to catch the players walking into the various rinks with their suits – vested ensembles seem to be their go-to these days – well instead of a dress shirt and tie, how about everybody wear at T-shirt that says Why Not Us?Eight teams left, four wild-cards still alive The four divisional winners out, along with one of the NHL’s best zebras, Dan O’Halloran, who often gets his whistle to the Cup final, also gone because he blew the Joe Pavelski/Cody Eakin/Paul Stastny incident and penalty call in San Jose.Faith, hope and parity, baby.This is what the folks at the NHL head office preach, and we’ve got it with the New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes in round two. It wrecked a juicier storyline -Isles coach Barry Trotz against the Caps team he piloted to their first Cup win last spring – but the storylines, chapter and verse, have all been torn apart in round one with four wild cards (Carolina, Columbus, Dallas and Colorado) still playing and Tampa, Washington, Calgary and Nashville, the four divisional leaders, gone.Instead, we’ve got the Islanders versus the Hurricanes for the first time ever.“Lots of people picked us for last (Metropolitan Division),” said Isles’ Jordan Eberle, whose team had the same pre-season love as the Hurricanes, who had gone through four coaches, three GMs and two owners in the previous 10 years.Instead, former captain John Tavares was answering questions about the Maple Leafs’ seventh-game loss to the Boston Bruins. Maybe he’ll be at Barclays Center Friday in a fake beard, a wig and dark glasses to take in the scene. It seems like last calendar year since the Isles last played, 10 days off, the third longest layoff in NHL history. Not that Eberle sounded worried.“Personally I’d rather have got right back to playing (round two) but we’ll find things to work on,” said Eberle, who had four goals against Pittsburgh.The Islanders have the better goalie, Robin Lehner, the Canes’ offence is driven by a very good top four of Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Dougie Hamilton and Justin Faulk and the forwards are almost a wash except the Isles have a terrific fourth line with Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin, who checked Sidney Crosby to a stand-still.The Islanders, who last won a Cup in the Bryan Trottier-Mike Bossy era in 1984, versus the Canes, who got into the post-season dance on the second-last day of regular-season, lost the first two, and were down two-zip and 3-1 in the third-longest Game 7 in NHL history before Brock McGinn knocked off the defending champion Capitals in Washington halfway through the second OT When the goal went in, Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour didn’t jump up and down. Instead, he had the look of a guy who finds a $20 bill on the floor of an airport, looks around to see if anybody dropped it, then quickly picks it up and says “well, can you believe this?”In the post-game exhale, Brind’Amour, the captain of the 2006 Canes, cut right to the great chase.“You only get so many cracks to create memories,” he said. “This is one we’ll take forever.”Of course, Mr. Game 7, Justin Williams, who has more points in deciding games (15) than anybody else in history and who set up McGinn’s goal, shrugged off his usual heroics.“This is not my story, this is the Hurricanes story,” he said after the 4-3 double OT win.The Isles’ story isn’t as crazy but with a new coach Trotz, a new GM Lou Lamoriello, some new players – Lehner, Val Filppula, Leo Komarov – and a belief that they could win without the former face of the franchise Tavares, they got out of the first round in a week, four straight wins against one of those 19 Cup winners in the past 20 years.The Isles, who had 103 points, won’t have Johnny Boychuk, who’s played more playoff games than anybody (101) because he’s out with a suspected busted foot after being hit by an Erik Gunbranson shot in the Pittsburgh sweep, but the time off between rounds one and two has cut into time out (3-4 weeks).Other than that they’re healthier than the Canes who didn’t have winger Micheal Ferland (the ubiquitous upper-body: Shoulder?) or Andrei Svechnikov (concussion after Alex Ovechkin rattled the rookie with some heavy right hands). Jordan Martinook, the Carolina forward who might need a cane because a leg is being held together by duct tape and bailing wire, and defenceman Trevor Vanriemsdyk only played 18 of the 91 minutes in Game 7 in Washington when he got dinged up early.